Australia: Land Beyond Time Page #3

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Drought

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lt can last for months

or years at a time

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Long periods without

rain push all life to the limit

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The young and the old

are first to feel the effects

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Clear skies parched earth and searing

heat become the rule of life

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Some will perish before the next rains come

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Now the kangaroos of the desert

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call on another remarkable strategy

for survival

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The female can halt the growth

of her developing embryo

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keeping it in a state of suspension

until conditions improve

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Only then will she give birth

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For the joey already born

the future is now uncertain

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But the unborn embryo will be ready

when good times return

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Surviving kangaroos will either move

to new territory in search of food

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or batten down near remaining waterholes

while at least some grass remains

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Emu families

have a similar hard choice to make

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Whatever they decide it will be a gamble

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Relief from drought is unpredictable

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and often arrives a long way

from where it is needed

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Each year the tropical wet season

brings storms

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and flooding to Australia's far north

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As the monsoon unfurls curtains of rain

a transformation begins

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As the wetlands fill crocodiles emerge

from scattered waterholes

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where they've been confined

during the dry season

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They will build nests above

the high water level

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and lay up to 100 eggs

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Vast networks of wetlands that have been

dry since last season are flooded again

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Sometimes this powerful event

can also transform Australia's arid centre

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ln years when rains are heavier

and more widespread than usual

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the water flows inland

to the parched interior

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Slowly heading south

water spreads across the plains

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ln six months or more

it may reach the centre of the continent

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Under cloudless skies

the water creeps quietly inland

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filling hundreds of dry waterways

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ln dry sandy creek beds

millions of tiny drought resistant eggs

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like seeds are waiting

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Subterranean life that may have been dormant

for years begins to stir

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Stimulated by seeping water

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the burrowing frog

awakes from its long sleep

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Carefully it parts the membrane that has

kept it moist through the drought

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Like the frog many creatures are primed

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for the good times

that are about to unfold

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Alerted by an ancient program

in their minds

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Egrets arrive

and take up feeding positions

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Fish have already started reproducing

in streams that until a week ago

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were tracks of dry sand

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Thousands of waterbirds join in a frenzy

of feeding and breeding

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that may happen only once

or twice in a decade

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Briefly the desert blossoms

in a colourful tide of new life

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One of the few large predators in this

land also participates in the bonanza

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Australia's wild dog the dingo

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arrived from nearby Asia about

four thousand years ago

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lts pups will feed on the plentiful

supply of rodents and reptiles

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that are also multiplying

in the abundant conditions

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Tens of thousands of pelicans

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are drawn by the

irresistible call of inland water

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Responding to reflections far away

in the sky

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the birds fly hundreds of miles to gather

on the shores of newly filled desert lakes

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With more than

half a million nesting birds

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colonies of this size are a rare event

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Pelicans normally breed in small

scattered communities

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producing one chick a year

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Here they'll produce five

or more in quick succession

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and go on doing so

as long as the food supply lasts

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Millions of years ago

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pelicans were breeding in the vast lake

system that covered much of the interior

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Ancestral knowledge seems to draw them

back to their primeval home range

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The water ends its longjourney at the

centre of the continent in Lake Eyre

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Nearly a million square miles

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of the continent drains into the

world's largest dry salt lake

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lt fills completely only about

twice a century

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lnevitably the flow of water stops

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The earth and blasting sun suck away

at the stagnant pools where life

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newly born there is on borrowed time

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Trapped by receding waters

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some of these fish will provide a final

feast for the birds

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Millions more

will return to the mud of the riverbed

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enriching it for the next generation

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With their food supply running low

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the great flocks of pelicans

become nomads once more

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